Friday, May 01, 2009

I Hate Endings

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand." ~George Orwell

Endings. In a really good book, or a really good movie, I hate when the ending rolls around. My favorite books as a child always left me with a sense of loss, because I was saying goodbye to characters and a world I'd come to love. Maybe that's why I read most of them more than once!

On the other side of the coin, though, as a writer, it's a little different. Sometimes I know exactly where I'm going, so the ending is easy to write. Sometimes I don't, and it surprises me. But sometimes I don't, and it frustrates the heck out of me. That's the case with my current WIP, Entwined. I have an idea of the ending -- I have since I started -- but now that I'm close, it's more of a mess than I imagined. Blech. I can't get it straight. I'm having the trouble getting the main plot and subplot worked out the right way. I thought taking a few days off for perspective would help, but it hasn't.

So...any suggestions when it comes to writing endings?

3 comments:

Marianne Arkins said...

Actually, I write the endings first -- usually when I'm about 2 or 3 chapters in. If I don't know where I'm going, I struggle with the middle.

Good luck!

Mary Ricksen said...

I love endings. I like to have the old cliff hanger, to keep people interested.

Liz said...

My trouble is getting there. The dreaded middle. Can write beginnings and endings all day long but the middle? yikes! The only advice I can think of is to trying a tie the ending to the beginning like you did in Summer's Song.